Tranquility and Joy through Nature's Beauty and Light. Starlisa's Fine Art Photography of the Pacific Northwest

Tag Archives: Washington

Shining bright with winter snow at the higher elevations. Mount Adams is the second tallest peak in Washington State, and yet had been the lesser visited mountain. We locals like it that way.. no roads open year around to treeline.

Someone recently sent me a bunch of pictures to share of tract D area, Bird Creek Meadows, and Mount Adams. . The devastation around the lakes up there was pretty intense but up in the Meadows things are not so bad. The three collage pictures of burned structures are The trailers of the Yakama Tribe Rangers that were up there at the time, at Mirror Lake and Bird lake.

These were shared anonymously but I appreciate the inside look at one of my favorite areas. I haven’t been up there since the Cascade Creek fire in 2015.

Yakama Tribes are in charge of this area and it is still closed to the public because of the Cascade Creek fire damage. They have no intentions of opening it at all this year and have been working on rebuilding fences, picnic tables, out houses, fire pit, trails, roads, signs etc.

A few recent shots to share with you from last weekend. This first one of the helicopter dipping in the turtle pond is during the recent Memaloose #2 Fire on the Oregon hills along the Columbia River between Mosier and Rowena. The fire was in mop up the last few days which has been a slow process because of the steep terrain and cliffs. Evacuations have all been dropped and the fire was knocked down.

By the way there’s no smoke in the picture because I’m looking south away from the fire.

I started out the morning on top of the world. At least that was the name of the aid station along the route of marathon set up by the Columbia Gorge running club. I had the pleasure of running radio communications at aid station two. My view included a glimpse to the north of Underwood Mountain in Washington state.

The Marathon started here:

On my way up the hill to my station it was misting/raining lately which was so refreshing after a long dry spell. Did not amount to much but it sure felt good. It also provided me with a rainbow. A great start to a beautiful day.

Here comes one of the runners through the aid station.

The end of the 50k

it really was the top of the world, and this is even on the way back down

This next image was taken After the race, Clear across the valley. Looking across the Hood River Valley towards the west and Binn Hill from Fir hill area on the east side of Hood River Valley.

Driving up over the hills and down the valleys to Mosier and upstate road I stopped and took the first photo of the helicopter picking up water. Along the way I stopped to take the photo of the tree because it grabbed my attention.

Here was the view of the backside of Memaloose #2 fire, although this iPhone shot doesn’t capture much. To the far right of the red circle there is smoke and a burned area that has come up over the hill from the north. Fortunately it did not spread much more than this.

After I watch the helicopter I drove back down to the freeway and up to the Dalles and back down to the Lyle rest area where I took a few more photos.

I visited the Klickitat River which is very murky from the glacial run off.

I even found a place to park out of the way somewhere and slept in my car because I knew I was too tired to drive home.

The next morning I stopped and grabbed a couple more shots from the Lyle rest area, happy to see that the fire across the river had calmed down considerably

I chatted with some tourists at the rest area and gave them plenty of information on my way to work at the Mt. Adams Chamber visitor center in White Salmon, Washington. Just doing my job!

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